#23. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

After rewatching A Nightmare on Elm Street, I forged onward into the depths of the A Nightmare on Elm Street box set. Logically, I tossed the second disc into the player and let that sucker roll through both Freddy’s Revenge and Dream Warriors. As a result I’m piggybacking these two reviews, churning them out one right after another, because I watched them in one sitting and it’s also November 7th and nobody gives a flipping garbage dump about bad horror sequels outside the proper #31DaysOfHorror. I can’t blame them; I’m only continuing on with this misguided quest because I watched 34 horror movies in a little over 31 days and goddammit I’m going to see this to the end.

I can’t tell you how dispiriting it is looking up at Freddy’s Revenge as #23 and knowing I have 11 more of these to write. I had plans for November, you know. Not great plans, but they were plans nonetheless.

I will now summarize my thoughts about A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge with a few tweets sent out in the heat of the moment.

Ahem.

Finishing up my #31DaysOfHorror/#Hooptober viewing requirements with NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2. This movie is all kinds of dumb.

At one critical point during a climactic chase scene between Freddy and our heroine in peril du jour, Freddy pauses, glares at his prey and promptly, viciously rakes his claw across a row of tchotchkes on a shelf. WHAT DID THOSE POOR TCHOTCHKES EVER DO TO YOU, FREDDY KREUGER? Someone spent many many dozens of dollars mail ordering ceramic figurines by mail and you just think you have the right to smash it all to pieces?

But it’s not that Freddy smashes the tchotchkes, it’s that he does not continue the pursuit for at least three beats. He remains in place, staring at the girl and basking in the glow of his wanton destruction.

Calling these things “red herrings” lends them too much credit. The term suggests that the unrelated event is meant to distract our attention from a proper conclusions. On the contrary, Freddy’s beer-bursting, tchotchke mashing, hot-dog flaming ways direct us without fallacy to the proper conclusion — that A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 is an insipid, toothless, misdirected waste of a movie. It’s not scary. It’s not funny (unintentional bits notwithstanding). And it certainly doesn’t play fair with the dream/real world parameters set forth in the original.

Dreams give Freddy power. Never sleep again. The necessity for sleep, the inevitability of dreaming created tension naturally. When A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 allows Freddy to possess the body of a teenager in order to crossover into the real world, it renders the fear and possibility of the limitless possibility of the dreamscape irrelevant.

What ho?! There are A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 apologists? Indeed. I hear your pleas for understanding. I also hear your argument that Freddy’s Revenge is a parable for coming out in the 1980’s. Cool. I can dig it. There’s plenty of foundation for a rather interesting analysis of the movie from that perspective. I look forward to reading it! But I’m certainly not writing it. I’ll be buggered if I have to sit through that stinkburger again anytime soon.